


mismatch-maker

by patriciaselina



Category: Original Work
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Comedy, Cupid - Freeform, Female Friendship, Friendship, Mythology - Freeform, Original work - Freeform, Other, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Platonic Soulmates, Psyche - Freeform, Reincarnation, modern-day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3175272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patriciaselina/pseuds/patriciaselina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sighs, and it’s a tired, resigned sigh, the kind that would sprout wings and fly away, a hundred-percent <em>done</em> with everything on the green earth. Then she says, her voice barely above a whisper:  “Someone left flowers in my locker. <em>Again</em>.”</p><p><em>Oh</em>.</p><p>“That’s the third time this week,” I say, trying for a conversational tone of voice.<br/>(Two friends have a coffee date. They’re also actually Cupid and Psyche. Well. Kind of.)</p><p>(UPDATE: 12/15/2015: Now has a Chapter 2.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hazhooki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazhooki/gifts).



“ _Un_ believable!” she says, her head falling dramatically into her hands as she hunches over our table, looking like all the world like someone praying over the poor unsuspecting bubblegum-pink-mug of steaming chamomile tea with sinister magic.

It’s a rather weird thing to imagine her doing, what with the fact that right now she’s the one in bright colors (one of those pretty retro-ish dresses) and _I’m_ the one all kitted out in black, but she’s clenching her hands so tightly that I can’t imagine her looking like she’s doing anything else.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” She says, groaning. “Not _again_ , I really _can’t_.”

“Hm.” I say, blandly, my lips pausing mere millimeters from the rim of my coffee mug. “What happened this time?”

“It’s a bit of a long story, actually. D’you still wanna hear it?”

“Well...”

Do I _actually_ want to know about this? Or do I want to _pretend_ to want to know about this, so I can then tune her out and focus on how to best get an arrow through those two over there? Decisions, decisions.

Then again, ever since I’ve inhabited this body – that’s around twenty years ago, if anyone’s been keeping count so far – she’s been my best friend. For _real_. Well. At _first_ I hadn’t been intending to _mean it_ when I said I wanted to be friends with her – my body was five full human years and she had somehow gotten caught up in one of my first ‘assignments’; I’d just needed her rapport back then so she’d get outta my way – but somewhere along the way she grew on me and now I can’t imagine living this human life without her.

I can’t believe I am actually _saying_ this. Who am I and what have I done with myself.

Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, even though it is _really tempting_ to just let her drone on and on about whatever human problem this may be, so I could just aim this smartphone at those two lovebirds so these app-arrows (arrow-apps?) could do their job and make them fall for each other already...she’s my real-life, actual best friend. And she’s at her wits’ end.

...also, I’m worried about her. There, I said it. Happy now?

“...I _guess_ I could spare the time.” I say, taking a sip of my coffee, casually as can be. Never mind that those two lovebirds have just left the café, their shoulders bumping into each other as they try to fit through the door at the same time, their eyes stealing glances at each other when they think the other can’t see them. With how obvious they’re being, I could most probably spot their tension from a mile away; tracking them again and getting the job done would be a cakewalk. “So: what happened?”

She sighs, and it’s a tired, resigned sigh, the kind that would sprout wings and fly away, a hundred-percent _done_ with everything on the green earth. Then she says, her voice barely above a whisper:  “Someone left flowers in my locker. _Again_.”

 _Oh_.

“That’s the third time this week,” I say, trying for a conversational tone, even as cold sweat beads on my brow. This is kinda, _partly_ , my fault, after all. “Did they at _least_ leave a note this time?”

“Yeah. It had something cheesy on it.” she tells me, her face scrunched up, sort of like a human version of Grumpy Cat, or something. “Didn’t they get the message? I wish they’d stop.”

If anyone would have heard us, they’d have thought that she was one of those ‘hard-to-get’ types. You know the ones, who act like they couldn’t care any less about the people who like them, but actually _do_ care and act like they don’t so they get more attention? Those are always the hardest targets to aim at, especially ‘cuz I can’t figure out whether or not I’ve already aimed at them before. (These ‘arrows’ are kinda like human medicine, in a sense – overdosing is _always_ a bad idea.) Yeah, well, you see, she’s really not one of them.

You see, my best friend here, she’s asexual. Aromantic, too. Basically, in the parlance of this one TV show she got me to watch before, love and sexual stuff aren’t really her ‘division’. This isn’t really something spectacular to us – it’s just who she is, and a part of the overall best friend I’ve known and loved. ( _Ugh_ I am such a sap.) It’s also a part of who _I_ am, in fact, though in my case it’s more... _work_ -related, than anything.

Not to my actual work, of course. I mean the work where I’m kind of actually, _literally_ , Cupid incarnate. Yup. _That_ Cupid. But no, not the shirtless flying baby.

Basically I’ve been walking the world for...well, let’s just say, as long as I could remember? The years kinda blur into each other as time goes on, but yeah, I’m definitely not just twenty-something, for _sure_. As an occupational bonus – or _hazard_ , depending on how you look at it – all these centuries dealing with love and all its messiness made me somehow _not_ wanna make love my ‘division’, either.

(If she ever found out about me being an aromantic real-life actual Cupid, I think she’d think the irony behind that would be _delicious_.)

Anyway! Anyway. Why is this my fault?

Well, my arrows can’t actually _force_ you to fall in love with someone, out of the blue. They _used_ to, back when my powers were still new and guys still went about in armor and fabrics that kinda look like today’s flashy miniskirts, but now they don’t because ‘free will’ is a thing that exists and it frustrates me that it took the bosses _eons_ to realize it. So my ‘arrows’ – the Infrared-like, invisible beams this special phone emanates when I run this app in the background – doesn’t really make people fall for anyone _but_ the people who they’re already in love with, in the first place.

So that means that, despite my seeming interference, all the other kinds of love still remained intact. Puppy love, fake love, head-over-heels love, first love, a whole lot of other loves, true love, unrequited love. The last one of which happens to be a thing this friend of mine attracts, in _spades_. Which is, like I said, partly my fault. Then again – how was I to suspect that a good half of my current ‘assignments’ are all going gaga over this ordinary girl?

How was I supposed to know that this ordinary girl is kind of actually, _literally_ , Psyche incarnate?

But enough about how we’re both 2015 versions of people who we’re not. Back to the fact that people are leaving flowers in her locker, _again_ , and, from the blister pack of Allerta she’s got under the saucer, her pollen allergy is striking, _again_. I sigh.

“You can use my locker, for now. Hopefully this person would run out of flower allowance fast, so we can switch back soon – my locker’s really out of the way of your classes, it’d be hard for you.” She walks _excruciatingly_ slow. Take my word on this.

“If it’s not flowers, it’s _letters_ , though.” she says, a shiver passing through her at the thought of the letters. Oh, the letters. You’d think her admirers had decided to cut down an entire rainforest of trees to write letters for her, with how damned _abundant_ they were. “But thanks, sis. That’d be a big help...sorry for troubling you.”

 _It’s the least I could do for getting you in this mess in the first place_ , I think, but don’t say – sure this all started with my meeting her when she was five, and three out of the six five-year-old boys in our preschool had googly eyes for her just because her powers had flourished through proximity with my magic, but she _doesn’t know this_. _Shouldn’t_ know this. Because if I tell her she’s Psyche then I’d _have_ to tell her I’m Cupid which would make me the supreme commander of Awkward Town, what with how they were married and all.

So instead I brush off all those awkward thoughts, get a little bit of a smile to my face, and tell her, “It’s no trouble at all.” ‘Cuz as long as it’s her...yeah, it really isn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liner notes!!!
> 
>   *          KOUHAI I’VE NO IDEA IF I GOT THIS RIGHT, GUHHHH. Basically this oneshot stemmed from my old original fic project, about an ace/aro modern Cupid (our POV girl), and toasterization’s original idea about an ace person being offended/annoyed by the people persistently trying to romance her (the POV girl’s best friend). Making them friends was kind of a fun idea I wanted to play with, so here we go!
>   *          I intentionally left stuff very vague here, it’s a test oneshot, after all. What are the main ladies’ names? What are the genders of the ‘lovebirds’ our POV girl’s honing onto here? And what are the genders of the people who’d been sending her best friend flowers? Normally, working through a mental process used to hetero couplings, you’d think that the ‘lovebirds’ are a guy and a girl, and that our best friend’s secret admirers are all guys. But I’d like the possibility of those not being the cases in either situation, so I went the vague route instead. (As for the names, though – I am _really bad_ at coming up with names.)
>   *          Despite the fact that one of them’s a Cupid and the other is a reincarnated Psyche, this is actually not the story of their romance – plainly stated, this won’t end with them falling in love with each other. Or with anyone else, really. Like I said above, they’re both ace/aro and are pretty much already each other’s platonic soulmate.
>   *          The Cupid lady works off an app on her magic Android phone, and the Psyche lady inadvertently charms everyone by virtue of just being her. An aspect of their modern-day friendship that really calls back to their original story is how Psyche girl/BFF really wholeheatedly _cares_ about the Cupid girl, no matter how weird or cellphone-obsessed (she’s always holding it out!) she may seem to be.
>   *          Placeholder title is a really shoddy placeholder, my apologies for that. It’s supposed to be a really bad, really awkward pun.
> 

> 
> Thanks for reading this!! I hope you liked it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see! This...sequel, of sorts, was originally written for an online magazine I write for, but seeing as I didn't make it before the deadline, I'm posting it here! Hope you'd enjoy reading it, I missed these two. :)

“Can I see you _now_?”

“ _No._ ”

“ _Ugh_ ,” I hear her say. “I came here ‘cuz I wanted to spend time with you, not ‘cuz I wanted to reenact _Frozen_.”

“I thought you liked that movie?”

“Liked _watching_ it, yes. But _living_ it? _No_.” One loud _bam_ , probably her trying to kick the door down. As if _that’d_ work. She may be our year’s best athlete, but my bedroom door doesn’t have those locks for nothing. “ _Open the door_.”

“ _No_.”

“ _Aah_ , but this is _ridiculous_!” If I know her as well as I think I do (and I _do_ know her all that well, damn it), she’s probably throwing her arms out to the skies right now, just like the drama queen most people have no clue she actually is. “People get chicken pox _all the time_. _I_ got chicken pox and looked _horrible_. It’s not gonna be something I haven’t seen before, y’know?”

“...I know.”

If only it really _was_ the chicken pox, though.

I’m not _really_ down with the pox. The reason why I suddenly decided to lock myself in two days back (good thing it’s a long weekend!) was that, being Cupid this time around and all, there comes a time where I have to assume the ‘gifts’ of my parentage in full. So, well, seeing as Aphrodite’s sort of my mom and all...well. Um. Judging by all the time I’ve spent locked in already, I’m gonna be a bit more attractive in a few more minutes.

Uh, no, scratch that, if ‘mom’ heard me think of myself like that, she might just come here and force me into frilly dresses, so no. Okay. Here’s the truth.

I’m gonna be _hella_ attractive in a few more minutes.

Lemme explain. It’s something that keeps happening to me all those lives back, as in, way _way_ back. There’s this little patch of time – around one, two days, where I get all sick and horrible and somehow come out of it looking gorgeous.

Don’t ask me how the science works. It just happens.

Before, I didn’t mind the ‘sickness’, _or_ the aftereffects, all too much – I was sent here on a mission, after all, and in the light of that, whatever I may look like is irrelevant. If people were drawn to me by my Aphrodite genes or whatever – it’s just a shallow thing, and I can always look into their hearts and redirect them to the people they really love anyway. But this time? This time is different.

For one, all the other times this thing happened, I was in high school, or around that age, so I was able to pass it off as a side-effect of puberty. Which is a stage I am way past, by now.

Another thing that’s different about right now – _she’s_ here. Yup. Her. The exact same drama queen whining on the other side of my bedroom door. She’s kind of Psyche in the same way that I’m kind of Cupid, and it’d be totally cute that our past selves were married and we grew up BFFs in this life, sort of like the childhood friend romcoms the mom I have in this life tends to like watching.

It _would_ be totally cute, if she didn’t tell me when she was fifteen that, like me, she wasn’t interested in pursuing romance stuff, either. Now it’s become the pink elephant in the room I keep ignoring.

I’m supposed to tell her about our past selves, apparently, or so the higher-up deities tell me – but how on earth do I even begin with that? “Bro, you remember that story about Psyche we had to read through for class? Well, you’re her reincarnation and I’m her hubby’s reincarnation, hahaha.”

IT WOULD BE _SO_ AWKWARD.

“ _..._ are you still alive in there?” she calls out from the other side of the door, her teeth crunching on something. “I just got a bag of your _favorite_ chips and if you don’t open that door _pronto_ , I won’t be giving you any.”

“...that’s okay. I think I’ll pass.” I say, barely audible over the grumbling of my stomach. Psyche or not, my best friend can be _very_ persuasive, when she wants to. “I’m not hungry.”

“Liars go to hell, bro.”

“That’s fine. I know people over there anyway,” I say, and she laughs. It’s a running joke between us, but she has no clue just how true it actually is. The reincarnation of Hades is a friend of mine. Just about the most cheerful reincarnated ruler of the underworld I’ve ever seen. She sometimes texts me to talk about farmer’s markets, I think she gets that from Persephone’s side of the family.

“Look. I know you think you look like crap right now, but I think you’ve forgotten that I’ve known you for _forever_.” she says. “I knew you during your bad fanfiction phase _and_ your emo phase. What the hell do you think you’d be able to hide from me if you shut me out _now_? I’m in this one for the long haul, bro.”

There’s this fuzzy feeling that builds up in my chest – less of the usual “ _OMG my One True Love, I wanna kiss the heck outta you_ ” and something a bit quieter, a bit calmer, more “ _I can’t believe you said we’re in for the long haul_ ”.

...what can I say. After all these years, I’ve begun running out of shorthand for these feels.

“Ugh, _fine_ , you asked for it,” I say, getting out of bed – stealing a look at my new face in the mirror out of curiosity ( _dimples_ , seriously???), and throwing the door open. “ _There_.”

She looks up from the empty bag of chips, up to my now-too-bright eyes, and I swallow down all my apprehension, fight back the urge to screw my eyes shut. _Here it goes –_

“You look just the same to me as always,” she says, with a calm smile on her face, which seriously shocks me.

 _Seriously_? _That’s_ all she has to say? Some lives back, some guys I lived with – distant relatives of the façade I was living – drove each other into a murderous frenzy upon seeing me. And I was _also_ a guy back then.

“I take it you’re all better now?”

My heart still in my throat – she’s looking at me the exact same way she’d always looked at me, _still_ – I just nod.

“Whew, glad _that’s_ over,” she says, linking her elbows with mine. No heart-eyes or sudden romantic overtures, just – just the same old comfortable reassurance. _I’m here_. And it’s the best surprise I could ever imagine having.

“Shall we go? We’re all out of chips. While you were all locked up and stuff, I ate everything.”

“...when _don’t_ you eat everything, though?”

“Hm. You have a point.”


End file.
